Highlights: Bad-Ass Mothers, Child Care Subsidies, From Run-DMC to Noggin

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Weeks like this past one, as we read that 19 more children and two teachers were slaughtered in their school, make just about anything else feel irrelevant.

But it isn’t. Our daily work must continue even as we educate ourselves and fight for a better world where all children—and their devoted teachers—don’t simply survive but thrive. What will it take for change to happen? How hard must each of us work to make that change happen?

May Highlights:

Child Care Starts to Flex Its Muscles. Elliot Haspel’s latest Provocation illuminates how the Child Care sector is finding its collective voice. For example, the “Day Without Child Care” action mobilized more than 50 diverse organizations in big blue urban areas and rural red states. Will it make a difference? Yes! Connecticut had no significant child care funding bills moving through its legislature prior to the March action, and afterwards suddenly found a path to $100 million. Read more.

New Mexico Becomes First State to Make Child Care Free for Nearly All Families. In very good news, a state long used to landing at the bottom of national rankings for children’s well-being just made a change that makes it tops in the country: In April, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that New Mexico would waive child care subsidy copays and expand eligibility to make care free for one year for nearly all residents. Bryce Covert reports for ELN.

How Child Life Specialists Improve Health Care for Young Patients. While doctors and nurses focus on treatment for their youngest patients, child life specialists—trained, certified pros—focus on the children’s feelings, including providing comfort or distraction as the child awaits a needle poke, scan or other procedure. Blair Hammond, MD, co-founding director of medical education at NYC’s Mount Sinai Parenting Center and associate prof of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital, says, “Child life is an invaluable part of pediatric care. The time spent engaging children in being children allows for us to support the entire patient and family, and not just see a diagnosis or treatment plan.” Read more.

From Run-DMC to Noggin. Darryl McDaniels might strike some as an unlikely ambassador for early literacy. As a part of Run-DMC, among the first hip-hop superstars, he dominated MTV. Best known for hits like “It’s Tricky” and “Mary Mary” and for joining forces with Aerosmith for a chart-topping remake of their “Walk This Way,” Run-DMC embodies the old school era of hip-hop now bathed in the glow of nostalgia. Today, McDaniels, 57, is a hit with the younger set through a vocabulary-building series from?Noggin?called “What’s the Word?” as well as a children’s book,?Darryl’s Dream, a semi-autobiographical story that focuses on social-emotional topics. Read more from ELN columnist, Mark Swartz.

Bad-Ass, Beautiful, Fierce Mothers and the Campaign for Child Care Subsidies in Alameda County. “Clarissa’s Battle” tells the story of a 10-year campaign for a tax increase to subsidize child care in Alameda County, California. In the first of two battles in the documentary film, the Parent Voices Oakland initiative comes up a half-percentage short of the votes needed to pass a new sales tax measure. The second battle, over a Citizen’s Initiative known as Measure C, passes early in 2020, but the pandemic hits before the vote can be certified. The largest ballot initiative of its kind has ramifications not just for families and children in Alameda County, which includes the city of Oakland: It signals a promising direction for early child care advocates across the nation. Mark Swartz reports.